The problem with Michael Ritchie’s 1985 film “Fletch” is that it’s a perfectly good ’80s Chevy Chase action-comedy and a very bad adaptation of Gregory McDonald’s Edgar-award-winning mystery novel. It’s a dichotomy that becomes clear if you’re one of the many, many ’80s kids (hello) who watched “Fletch” on video and HBO so many times we memorized it and then went to read the book – and its ten (ten!) follow-ups – and discovered they were something different altogether. When Ritchie and Chase re-teamed four years later to make a sequel, they didn’t even bother adapting one of the other books; they made an original sequel to the movie version of the character, “Fletch Lives,” which satisfied no one.
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And that’s the conundrum that has haunted the character’s subsequent thirty-plus years in development hell: does one attempt to recapture the wacky slapstick tone of the Chase movies or the light comedy-crime thriller vibe of McDonald’s books? Greg Mottola’s “Confess, Fletch” takes the latter and wiser approach, and the unplanned, long delay between installments probably helped. The “Fletch” fandom is far less fervid than that of, say, “Ghostbusters,” and it’s hard to imagine anyone getting too worked up about a 2022 movie not showing proper deference to Chevy Chase.
It also helps that Jon Hamm (who also produced) is such a terrific Fletch – offhandedly funny but not silly, roguishly charming, a fast thinker and fast talker who can still occasionally, amusingly, screw up. He’ll don a fake name and identity to bluff his way in or out of a jam, but the silly disguises were an invention of the Chase team, and they’re left there. “Confess, Fletch” isn’t a terribly faithful sequel, but it’s a much better adaptation of the books, and that’s as it should be.
In fact, Mottola and Zev Borow are smart enough to adapt McDonald’s second “Fletch” novel, in which our hero, Irwin M. Fletcher – who, as he mentions several times, “used to be an investigative reporter of some repute” – is on assignment in Boston, where his customary uniform of a blazer and Lakers hat attracts some attention. He draws even more when he walks into the house he’s rented for the trip and finds a dead woman lying on the floor.
He’s the prime and obvious suspect – though luckily, the case is investigated by Inspector “Slo-Mo” Monroe (Roy Wood Jr.), who always gets his man but takes forever to make the arrest. (This is the one major alteration from the novel – mostly just a name change, as the book’s Inspector Flynn was subsequently spun off into his own book series, which I presume someone else owns.) The mystery is deliciously complicated, as Fletch is in Boston to investigate the theft of several expensive paintings from an Italian client, who is kidnapped – and one of the stolen paintings is the ransom. And so, Fletch has to solve that murder to clear his name while also solving the case he was there to solve in the first place. (It will surprise neither viewers of the first film nor readers of mysteries to discover that they might be connected.)
Mottola is no slouch as a filmmaker – his credits include “Superbad,” “Adventureland,” and his indie breakthrough, “The Daytrippers.” The cinematographer is Sam Levy, who has shot films for Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig and gives the picture a crisp, colorful palate (especially its delightful Rome-set opening credit sequence). “Confess, Fletch” is light on its feet, particularly a late sequence that unexpectedly gathers several characters in the same place with the precision and energy of a door-slamming farce. If it runs out of steam a bit by the very end – with a few too many epilogues and postscripts – that’s an allowable indulgence.
The picture benefits greatly from a top-tier supporting cast: Kyle MacLachlan is screamingly funny as a germaphobe art broker with an EDM obsession; Annie Mumlo gets the funniest scene in the movie as an insane neighbor (“Oh, the power’s back on! Guess my check didn’t bounce…”); and Marcia Gay Harden sports a thick, hilarious accent as an Italian countess (“Flesh, ees no time for wise crack”). There’s sadly not much of Hamm’s old “Mad Man” pal John Slattery as Fletch’s former editor, but he nails it, while Lorenza Izzo shows thankful signs of life after Eli Roth, funny and spirited and sexy as Fletch’s new girlfriend/client’s daughter. And Eugene Mirman appears to have been allowed to riff on whatever the hell he wanted in his small but very funny role, and that’s a laudable decision.
But this is Hamm’s show, and he takes the right approach to the character, which he plays as a mixture of the Fletch of the books and his own persona, with the mildest dash of Chase’s interpretation for flavor. His inability to land a good movie role post-“Mad Men” has been downright baffling (granting the many charms of “Top Gun: Maverick,” it was downright depressing to watch him playing a square-jawed fist-shaker), but he’s certainly found it here.
Now the question is, will anyone see it? “Confess, Fletch” is an absolute pleasure – the mystery is a corker, and I giggled from beginning to end – yet it’s getting the barest of half-assed releases, hitting (limited!) theaters and VOD Friday, and then Showtime barely a month later. But fear not; that’s less of a reflection on the quality of the movie than on this weird moment in the industry, where there’s no longer room in the theaters for a well-made, well-acted, consistently funny studio comedy. And that’s our loss. [B+]